Montana Album: Montana State football great drowns in construction accident

Terry Dillon, 23-year-old Minnesota Vikings professional football player and all-time grid-iron great at Montana State University, is presumed drowned in the Clark Fork River, 28 miles of Missoula. He was riding a “concrete buggy” on a motorized wheelbarrow, at work on the Interstate bridge project, when a wooden ramp broke, hurling him 70 feet into the swift, muddy waters. Fellow workmen said Dillon rose to the surface and appeared to be swimming with the current toward an outcropping of land when he disappeared.

NEW DELHI – Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a quick-tempered aristocrat known to the world as “Mr. India,” died of a heart attack Wednesday and left his grief-stricken nation in a leadership vacuum. He was 74. Handicapped since Jan. 7 by a paralytic stroke, Nehru had refused to say who he believed should succeed him.

Two persons were arrested Sunday afternoon and booked for illegal possession of an unregistered whiskey still as a result of a call to investigate an offensive odor coming from the basement of the residence at 2226 7th Ave. South. Held on $5,000 bond each were Albert Grasseschi, 60, and his wife, Primrose, 37, at whose residence the still was discovered.

LIMA, Peru – Furious fans rioted at an international foot soccer game here Sunday, and 285 persons were stomped, trampled and suffocated to death in the panic. At least 500 others were injured in what is believed to be history’s worst sports event disaster. While scores died, most of them in the stands jam-packed against closed gates, general fighting broke out on the field and outside the stadium. Gangs of young toughs swarmed to the scene. At least a dozen cars were overturned and set afire.

Police moved against a mob of enthusiastic students singing and marching on Central Avenue Thursday night and nipped off what officers said could have been a potentially dangerous and possibly tragic situation. Enthusiasm at their coming graduation plus the relaxation from the rigors of demanding academic work were blamed for clouding the judgment of an estimated 50 to 75 young people, mostly Great Falls high School graduating seniors who caused the disturbance.

CAPE KENNEDY, Fla. – America’s Apollo man-to-the-moon test flight program rocketed to an impressive start Thursday when a Saturn 1 superbooster propelled into orbit an unmanned model of the lunar spaceship. The feat raised National Aeronautics and Space Administration confidence that it can achieve the goal of a moon landing in the 1960s.

Cascade County Sheriff’s officers have warned residents of the Great Falls vicinity that rattlesnakes have ended their hibernation and now are moving down form the rocky hillsides. Sunday afternoon, George Wargo, deputy, killed three rattlers on the Gore Hill road. The largest was about five feet long and had seven rattles.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Texan A.J. Foyt Jr. won the 500-mile Memorial Day auto race for the second time Saturday, driving to a record in a supposedly obsolete Offenhauser roadster that survived a day of frightful crashes in which two drivers died and 10 persons were hurt. Eddie Sachs, of Detroit, died in his eighth attempt to win the richest auto speed event, caught in a flaming tangle that resulted when rookie David MacDonald, El Monte, Calif., crashed. MacDonald, who inhaled blazing gasoline, died a few hours later.

HELENA – Neither breezy, damp , chilly weather or a temporarily snafued sound system cooled the enthusiasm of the more than 1,500 persons who turned out for Montana’s 100th birthday party. The celebration on the sweeping lawn and street in front of Montana’s copper-domed Capitol was reminiscent of accounts of the ceremony 65 years ago when the building’s cornerstone was laid. There was music by the Montana Centennial Band, a prayer by the Rev. Charles A. Wilson, a welcome by Gov. Tim Babcock, a view of 11 Lincolnesque figures and singing before the main show.

UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. – Soviet Delegate Nikolai Fedorenko Tuesday accused Sen. Barry Goldwater of urging the United States to adopt a “cannibalistic policy” of atomic warfare in South Viet Nam. He suggested Goldwater be placed in a straitjacket. U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson replied that foreign policy is made by the executive branch of the U.S. government and not by Goldwater “or any other senator.”

WASHINGTON – American Telephone & Telegraph Co. is investing $58 million, it was disclosed Wednesday, in the infant Communications Satellite Corp called COMSAT. COMSAT filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission an amended prospectus covering its first stock issue — 10 million shares at $20 a share — to finance a commercial satellite system for global telephone and television transmission.

NEW YORK – Milwaukee slugger Joe Torre, an unsuccessful holdout, has been taking out his wrath on opposing National League pitchers this season. The young catcher-first baseman was a late arrival in spring training, finally capitulating to the Brave’s offer which was about $5,000 less than he had been seeking. So far, Torre has been more successful as a hitter than a salary negotiator. In last week’s games, he batted .560 with 14 hits in 25 tries and climbed into third place in the NL.

100 Years Ago

From the Tribune Week of May 15, 1914

While the time has not been reached when a prediction as to the outcome of his case can safely be made by the attending physicians, Mayor Spogen has improved greatly during the past week, and his friends now feel very hopeful for his recovery. Mr. Spogen is now a patient in the Sacred Heart hospital in Spokane, and it has been definitely decided by the physicians that there is a pressure at the left side of the brain, either from a blood clot or arterial trouble. With the exception of a day or two, the patient has been conscious, but it seems he has lacked power to say what he wanted to much of the time. Before Mayor Spogen was taken to Spokane, his young son, Roy Spogen, was playing in the street with some older boys and one of them, trying to make the little fellow dance, shot him in the left eye with an arrow.

RIMOUSKI, Quebec – Of a total of 1,387 persons on board the Canadian Pacific liner, Empress of Ireland, when she sailed from Quebec for Liverpool yesterday, 954 were lost when the liner was rammed by the Danish collier Storstad and sank off Father Point in the St. Lawrence river before daylight of May 29, according to revised figures late tonight. Only 433 lives are known to have been saved. So deep was the gash in the stricken liner’s side inflicted by the sharp prow of the heavy-laden collier, and so fast was the inrush of the sea, that although the first rescue steamer reached the scene within 20 minutes after the meeting of the two vessels, the liner already had gone down.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of rich farming land were brought miles nearer to a market yesterday afternoon when the new Ulm bridge was opened for traffic, the occasion marking one of the greatest celebrations that has ever occurred in the county outside of this city. Hundreds of people were present when the bridge was dedicated and formally opened . From all sections of the vast farming territory adjacent to Ulm they came — from the Lower Chestnut valley, from Castner Coulee, from the flat and Square Butte country and from Sun River bench came delegations anxious to show their appreciation of the improvement marked by the erection of the new bridge.

LONDON – Shouts of “shoot the king” filled a hall in which a meeting of the women’s Social and Political union, the militant suffrage organization, was held this afternoon. Every mention of King George’s name was greeted with angry derision and prolonged hissing. Mrs. Mildren Mansel, who served a term of imprisonment for breaking windows at the war office, presided at the suffragette gathering and alluded to the scenes at Buckingham palace on Thursday, when 57 suffragettes, including Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst, were arrested at the park gate, and declared both the royal name and the royal office had been disgraced.

At a meeting of the Power City shooting club held last night, the fish committee reported that the matter of locating a fish hatchery at Giant springs had been taken up with Secretary O.M. Holmes of the commercial club who had given it his approval and promised the plan his hearty support. Blanks have been forwarded to the hatchery for fry.

INDIANAPOLIS – The intense heat of the last few days has caused considerable alarm among drivers who will compete in the 500-mile race to be run on the Indianapolis motor speedway Saturday. If the temperature is as high on race day as it was today, it will be an important factor in the contest. Danger to contestants and spectators will be increased because of the quick burning out of tires and the difficulty the drivers will have in keeping their cars on the course after blowouts.

This is the season of the year when the dandelion pest looms large within the city limits and consequently it is the time when the property owners ought to use every effort to stamp out the nuisance. A few licks with a hoe or a little time passed with a sharp knife to which is added a little physical effort in the way of scooping and cutting out the dandelion plant by the roots will do much toward eliminating the plant that makes such an antagonist against the tender grass.

MOHONK LAKE, N.Y. – A joint address by Dr. John Bates Clark, professor of political economy at Columbia university, and Sir George Parish, editor of the London Statist, was read by Dr. Clark at the Lake Mohonk conference on international arbitration today. They had been asked to present a plan for taking one practical step in the direction of universal peace. They proposed a standing committee of the powers. “The need for this,” they said, “exists independently of warfare. The nations have become interdependent where formerly they sought to be self-contained, both politically and economically. They live by serving each other.”

Fire declared to have been of incendiary origin destroyed the new ranch house of Halvors Norskog 12 miles east of this city early yesterday morning, together with all the contents, which were new. Mr and Mrs. Norskog were in the city Saturday night and returned yesterday morning to the ranch to find heir home in ashes. The destruction of the home of Mr. Norskog takes on an ugly-looking aspect; it is the second time his residence on the same ranch has been burned in a few weeks.

BUTTE – On a charge that nine days ago she was forcibly taken to the parsonage of a well-known minister in an automobile, carried from the car to the doorway of the parsonage and then, by threats, forced to go through a ceremony, were the sensational grounds upon which Mildred Irvine, well-known in younger society circles of Butte, had her marriage to Verne N. Mason annulled by District Judge Donlan yesterday afternoon. The groom is a Helena boy and at present a sophomore in the school of mines.

William Schmidt, 28 years old, committed suicide in the alley by the Grand theater last night after having attempted to murder his former sweetheart, Miss Mary Widlowski, and her fiance, Otto Riek, both of whom he wounded and both of whom are now patients at the Columbus hospital where they were taken immediately following the shooting. That both the intended victims are not dead is not fault of Schmidt, but merely a matter of bad aim, for he fired either four or five shots at them. Schmidt’s aim at his own brain was faultless.

WASHINGTON – Provisions aimed against exclusive agency contracts were perfected by the House today in the consideration of the Clayton bill to supplement the anti-trust laws. Scores of amendments designed to alter the measure as framed by the judiciary committee were voted down. Three of the 22 sections of the bill were agreed to during the day’s debate.

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